Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“Aw, I think she’s embarrassed, guys,” I said, crossing the plane until I was behind her. I rubbed her shoulders, brushing my thumb along the slope of her neck and loving that I made chills break out when I did. “It’s okay, Maven. We know you can’t dance for shit.”
The guys laughed and made a deep ooohhhh sound, watching as Maven narrowed her eyes and looked over her shoulder at me.
“Is that what you think?”
I shrugged, egging her on. “Prove me wrong.”
The team started chanting her name, and she arched a brow, breaking out of my hold with a determined nod.
Using the hand Carter had outstretched to help her, she climbed up onto one of the large leather seats, and then she started pumping her fists to make the team roar even louder.
When she had their attention, she cast me one last watch this look, and she broke it down.
She was goofy at first, waving her hands in the air and bobbing her head. Then, her shoulders shimmied, and she pointed at one of our wingers before doing his signature celebration dance — brushing off her shoulders with her brows pinched together before she pretended to shoot a basket. She held her hands up in the little flick and we all went wild.
One by one, she pointed at each teammate and mimicked them, whether by doing their dance or, like in Daddy P’s case, crossing her arms and scowling hard while imitating his crouched goalie position.
My stomach was in stitches, and just when I thought she couldn’t shock us all any more than she had, she pointed right at me with a wink.
Then, she bent in half, her hands finding the leather of the seat. She kicked one foot up behind her to balance on the head rest, and then the other, until she was inverted and stacking her hips over her shoulders.
The plane quieted a bit with confused murmurs, the music growing in a crescendo toward the beat drop. When it did, Maven knocked us all on our asses.
Because she started shaking hers.
She twerked upside down, her ass bouncing side to side, up and down, and then in a circle as she threw it to the beat. The team went absolutely ape shit, but when Carter wound up like he was going to smack her ass, I caught his wrist before he could, pinning him with a glare.
“Do you want to die tonight?” I asked him.
He just laughed, holding his hands up in surrender while he and Jaxson exchanged looks.
Trying to play it off before they could read too much into it, I picked Maven up and hauled her over my shoulder, dancing us down the aisle and off the plane with her little fists beating on my back, and the team following behind us with hoots and hollers.
I didn’t drop her until we were on the tarmac, and she came up breathless, laughing and smacking my chest.
“You interrupted my celly!”
“That’s because it was about to get me thrown off my team and possibly in jail, too.”
She grinned, leaning forward with a little shimmy of her shoulders. “What’s wrong, Vince Cool? Don’t like other guys looking at my ass?”
She waggled her brows as I leaned in and tilted her chin up with my knuckles. “I’m going to spank that ass later.”
“Promises, promises.”
Maven was so light, so playful in that moment that I couldn’t help but mirror her smile.
I wanted to kiss her.
Right then, right there, without a fucking care in the world who saw us. I wanted to kiss her until she melted into me the way she always did, until she begged me to take her home.
“SURPRISE!”
I didn’t realize how close my lips were to Maven’s until the sound broke through the haze, and we both jumped away from each other, snapping our heads in the direction it came from.
When I saw my family standing there with wide-open arms, my jaw dropped.
“Mom? Dad? Grace?” I shook my head in disbelief as they crowded me in a group hug. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“We knew you wouldn’t be able to come home for Christmas with your schedule,” Mom said.
“So, Mom insisted we bring Christmas to you,” my little sister finished, rolling her eyes. “Precious Prince Vince, always the favorite child.”
Mom narrowed her eyes, but we all laughed at the joke, the same one Grace had made for years. My dad clapped me on the shoulder, beaming, his chest puffed. “You look good, son. Damn good. And what a game!”
I was still in shock that they were there, shaking my head as my heart swelled. If I wasn’t surrounded by my teammates, I probably would have cried. It’d been so long since I’d seen them, my first season in the NHL sweeping me up and making it impossible to get back up to Michigan for a visit. It had been hard at first without them, but then I’d been so focused on the schedule, and most recently, on Maven. I hadn’t stopped long enough to remember how homesick I was.